Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. must soften its tactics in
dealing with Iran over its nuclear program if it wants the
Islamic Republic to make concessions on uranium-enrichment work,
said the former head of the United Nations atomic agency.

“There has been too much of a reliance on the whip rather
than the carrot in the case of Iran,” Hans Blix, the Swede who
led the International Atomic Energy Agency for 16 years until
1997, said in an interview yesterday in Geneva. “It’s a U.S.
attitude but very often, incentives are better than
disincentives.”

The U.S. and Israel accuse Iran of covertly seeking atomic-weapons capabilities through activities including uranium
enrichment, while the Persian Gulf nation says its work is
intended only to generate nuclear power. The U.S. and the
European Union have imposed dozens of sanctions on energy,
trade, banking and shipping to induce Iran to suspend aspects of
its atomic program.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the sanctions
amount to a “full-scale, hidden psychological war” and that
his government is studying ways to sidestep them. The
restrictions have damaged Iran’s economy and led to difficulties
in selling oil and transferring money, he told state television
on Sept. 5 before traveling to New York to attend the UN General
Assembly meeting.

Uranium Enrichment

Iran maintained its output of enriched uranium and doubled
enrichment capacity at its mountainside Fordo facility, the
Vienna-based IAEA reported on Aug. 30. About 175 kilograms (386
pounds) of 20 percent enriched uranium, or 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, if further purified, could yield the quantity
of weapons-grade uranium needed to produce a bomb, according to
the London-based Verification Research, Training and Information
Center, a non-governmental observer to the IAEA that’s funded by
European governments.

While the EU has tried to coax Iran into abandoning
enrichment by offering to help it develop its civilian atomic-power industry, join the World Trade Organization and attract
investment -- proposals Blix called “intelligent, but not
enough” -- the U.S. has used a heavier hand, he said in the
interview in Geneva, where he was participating in a conference
on nuclear proliferation and disarmament.

“The threat of punishments is less effective, especially
if you have a very proud party on the other side, like Iran or
North Korea,” he said. “That has been a failure from the very
outset.”

Nations including Japan, South Africa and Brazil enrich
uranium as allowed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and
Iran’s position is ‘Why then single us out and say that we
cannot do it?’ ” Blix said. “ ‘Here is a right that we have as
a nation, and in order to induce us not to exercise this right,
then offer something more.’ The way in which the inducement has
been there has not been sufficient,” he said.